Republicans running in Kansas swing district push Rep. Sharice Davids from the right

The five Republicans competing to flip Kansas’s 3rd District back to the GOP offer approaches to healthcare, the economy and immigration to the right of first-term Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids.

Republicans are hoping to win back swing voters who defected to Davids in 2018 amid a wave of anti-Trump Democratic gains. Trump ally Kevin Yoder held the suburban Kansas City seat for four terms before being ousted.

The Star sent the GOP candidates a questionnaire about key issues ahead of the Aug. 4 primary.

Amanda Adkins

After 15 years of working in the healthcare industry, Amanda Adkins said she’s concluded that “healthcare costs too much and is not making us healthier.”

The former Kansas Republican Party chairwoman took a leave of absence from her executive position at healthcare IT giant Cerner in January.

Adkins characterized the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have so far failed to repeal and replace under President Trump, as an ineffective “experiment.” However, she offered no comprehensive healthcare alternative.

She said certain COVID-19 accommodations, such as expanded telemedicine and accelerated FDA review of new discoveries and therapeutics, should be made permanent.

As the country continues to reel from the pandemic, Adkins said the federal government must create “incentives that reward work, not furthering dependency on government.”

Adkins supports building a wall on the Mexican border and said elected officials have a moral obligation to create an immigration system that protects American lives and jobs. She said Congress should work with businesses to develop a “long-term workforce plan” that would shape future immigration policy.

Adkins acknowledged the reality of climate change and said solutions should capitalize on American innovation.

“Climate change is real and global industrial activity is a contributing factor,” Adkins said. “I support market-based legislation that incentivizes clean energy investments and promotes clean energy technologies.”

Sara Hart Weir

A former president of the National Down Syndrome Society, Sara Hart Weir said protecting the most vulnerable is a personal issue for her.

“I serve as a co-guardian to my best friend with Down syndrome, and I see how the current system fails her,” she said.

Weir played a major role in the 2014 passage of the ABLE Act, which created tax-exempt savings accounts that protect Medicaid benefits for people with disabilities.

Although she supports efforts to combat illegal immigration with physical barriers and increased drone surveillance at the southern border, Weir is opposed to child separation and inhumane conditions at detention centers.

“In order to fix our immigration system, we need to implement a new strategy to prevent overcrowding of our detention centers to make them more humane,” Weir said.

Weir said it’s time to start decoupling the American and Chinese economies, and that Congress should stop granting government contracts to American companies that manufacture their products overseas.

She said the widespread adoption of social media has divided Americans and had a “corrosive impact on society.”

“Congress needs to take steps to fund education programs to teach people (young and old alike) how the media they consume impacts the way they think, feel, and take in the world around them,” Weir said.

Mike Beehler

A former executive at Burns & McDonnell, Mike Beehler said the pandemic exemplifies government mismanagement of healthcare.

“Let states provide social safety nets for healthcare,” Beehler said. “When we rebuild the economy back to the Pre-COVID record-setting results in unemployment across all sectors, employers will compete for workers with better wages and better benefits.”

Beehler said that in a second Trump term, Republicans would use public-private partnerships to build $2 trillion worth of new infrastructure in the country. Trump has long favored a major infrastructure investment, but no such plan has emerged.

Beehler supports building a border wall, and said preventing illegal immigration is particularly important now, during a time of high unemployment in the U.S.

He also said he hopes to do away with bilingual education and to ensure that non-native-English-speaking children become proficient in the language at a young age.

“Let’s have excellence in English first for young people, and then we can move on to some other things,” Beehler said.

“You want to be proficient so you can assimilate, become a citizen and then compete in the world marketplace.”

The former engineering executive, who said he has read the proposed Green New Deal, dismissed the scientifically proven threat of climate change.

“When I was getting my engineering degree, the ‘experts’ were telling us of an impending ‘ice age,” Beehler said.

“This is less about climate and more about ‘some’ wanting government control over the free markets.”

Adrienne Vallejo Foster

Adrienne Vallejo Foster, the former mayor of Roeland Park, said it’s time for Republicans to offer a vision for healthcare reform that will “inspire a new generation of Americans” by providing an “affordable, fully portable and highly personalized” system.

She did not elaborate on how that vision should be actualized.

After one term as mayor and a stint as executive director of the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission, Foster served the Trump administration as Region 7 advocate for the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“I was a small business owner and understand the time-sucking burden of complying with so many government regulations,” Foster said.

Foster, whose grandparents immigrated legally from Mexico in 1910, said America’s borders must be secured.

“We must focus on identifying and preventing the entry of drugs, violent criminals, sex offenders, cartel and gang members, human traffickers, predators, coyotes, and terrorists,” Foster said.

The former mayor said she offers a “more practical approach” to environmental sustainability.

“The Federal government is the largest spending organization in the world and has the largest footprint. They borrow and squander billions,” Foster said. “Therefore, everything we can do to reduce their spending and their footprint, is helpful to our environment.”

Tom Love

Tom Love, a former Democratic state representative-turned Republican real estate investor, is an outspoken advocate of literacy labs in public schools.

“I want the Federal Government to target K-2nd grade children’s Title One funds for K-2nd grade literacy labs in our poorer schools in the 3rd District and around the country,” Love said, noting that roughly one in six children have dyslexia.

“The majority of prison inmates are functionally illiterate and they didn’t receive this help.”

According to a Literacy Project Foundation survey, 60% of prison inmates and 85% of juveniles who come in contact with the court system are functionally illiterate.

Love said Americans with pre-existing medical conditions should be placed in an insurance pool so that insurance companies can share the risk.

He said he supports major tax reforms, including removing “the majority” of the U.S. tax code.

“Provide a flat tax rate on incomes above the poverty level,” Love said. “Then the middle class will get a break and won’t be paying 40% in when all taxes are considered.”

Love favors a comprehensive immigration plan that includes a border wall. He said undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children should be allowed to stay.

This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.